The Manual Therapy Institute offers a planned program of post-professional clinical
and didactic education that prepares a clinician in the subspecialty of orthopedic
manual physical therapy. The clinical and didactic instruction is intensive and
includes extensive mentored clinical experience and provides a sufficient and appropriate
patient population to create an environment for building advanced clinical skills.
We seek to produce highly skilled autonomous practitioners who are critical thinkers
and lifelong learners. Fellowship graduates will represent the best clinicians in
the physical therapy profession, equipped to teach and mentor fellows, clinicians,
and students.

The program incorporates current best evidence with a patho-functional
morphological model. This model describes how changes in function can lead to restricted
movement and complaints of pain. The ability to perform a focused evaluation that
identifies the movement dysfunction provides for efficient intervention. For example,
it is not the greater trochanteric bursitis that gets treated, but the underlying
movement dysfunction that leads to the greater trochanteric bursitis. It is not
the rotator cuff tendonopathy that gets treated, but the underlying movement dysfunction
that leads to the tendonopathy. The patho-functional morphological model of examination
and intervention focuses on the cause of the problem rather than the symptoms and
facilitates a comprehensive approach to treatment.

The fellowship program has a formal relationship with Rosalind Franklin University
of Medicine and Science in North Chicago, IL. This collaboration allows completion
of the fellowship program to count towards fulfilling part of the requirements for
a tDPT degree. The Manual Therapy Institute is credentialed by the APTA and recognized
by the AAOMPT as a post-professional clinical fellowship program in orthopedic manual physical therapy.